by Bruce G. Epperly
I was raised in a conservative Christian home. But, by the time I entered high school, I had forsaken my Baptist roots. As a rather precocious spiritual seeker, the texts that inspired me throughout high school were the Tao Te Ching, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, The Lord of the Rings, The Teachings of Don Juan, Walden, and the writings of Emerson and Hesse. I found God through Hindu meditation and psychedelic adventures rather than the black-backed Bible that was my childhood guide.
By the time I entered college, I felt a lure to explore Christianity once more. But, I didn’t know how to get there. The only Christianity I could imagine was narrowly doctrinal and spiritually deadening. I would have to give up everything I learned from other faiths to become a Christian again, and I couldn’t do that.
As a first and second year college religion and philosophy major at San Jose State University, focusing on world religions and Asian philosophy, two books provided a gateway and a path. I chanced upon Paul Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith and my theological world was turned upside down. Tillich asserted that faith included doubt. As a Baptist child, doubt was the enemy of faith, and since as college student, I doubted everything about conservative Christianity, I felt I could no longer call myself a Christian. Tillich’s work was a gateway to Christianity. I didn’t need to know all the answers to call myself a Christian; I just needed to see the way of Jesus as an ultimate concern. Christianity was not primarily about propositional truth but about a way of life and experiencing the world. I could call myself a Christian with all my questions and doubts, because questions and challenges opened the door to spiritual and theological adventure and growth. Christ was in the questions as well as the answers.
Shortly thereafter, I enrolled in a course on Process Theology, taught by Richard Keady. We read Whitehead’s Process and Reality and essays by process theologians such as John Cobb, who later became my graduate school professor. The texts were difficult, but they presented a way of navigating Christianity – a path – that made sense to me. Process theology stressed God’s intimate love – God touched all creation gently and without coercion, God also experienced everything in the world – including my deepest questions and joys – and responded with love and not judgment. The world of process theology stressed the interdependence of all life, the unity of humankind with the non-human world, the partnership of faith, science, and medicine, the revelation of God in all faith traditions, and the importance of humankind in shaping the future of our planet. The future is open-ended and we have a role in healing the earth.
Process theology didn’t have all the answers. In a universe of 100 billion galaxies, absolute theological or scientific certainty is an illusion. But, process theology took me down the pathway that Paul Tillich opened up for me. Tillich allowed me to claim the word “Christian” for myself and process theology gave shape to my Christian faith. I am still evolving as a teacher, pastor, writer, administrator, and spiritual adventurer. But, I am grateful for a gateway and path that enabled me to claim the way of Jesus as my way to God and to discover that being a Christian meant being open, rather than closed, to the many other pathways toward the divine.
Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-pastor of Disciples Community Church in Lancaster, PA. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. Those interested in his work on healing may consult God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus and Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice.
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